


Mirrors

by Bayyvon



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-17 23:22:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14841168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bayyvon/pseuds/Bayyvon
Summary: “This ain’t your head, darlin’, this is New York.”





	Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: this is loosely based off of the film In Your Eyes (2014) 
> 
> I just thought the concept was way too interesting not to play with.

Bucky stands before the mirror, measuring his own gaze. He shifts back and forth uncomfortably, uniform stiff on his shoulders. His first name reads large in red stitching across the patch above his breast pocket. He starts work today, part of the rehabilitation program insisted upon by the city to reinstate his credibility before they could trust him to protect them. He wasn’t sure how well he would do, but. If this was what it took. Maybe if he could convince them, he could convince himself. That he was good. Worthy of being a protector. Of being useful. 

 

Checks his watch. 

 

8:45

 

Time to go.

 

————

 

Y/N stares out into the early California morning. The sun begins to streak pink and purple against a soft orange halo. The city had yet to awaken below her, and neither had her fiancé. Her cup of coffee is warm between her palms, and she sighs. This was. Good. A good day. It had been a long time since her last real good day, and she was determined not to let anything spoil it.

 

Arms encircle her waist, and a soft rumble courses through Jacob as he kisses the back of her neck. “Mmm, g’mornin’.”

 

“Morning.” She leans into his hold, and feels content. Jacob had a meeting in an hour and a long shift after that, and she would have the house to herself for most of the day. 

 

“This meeting is big.” He muses as he rests his chin on her shoulder, staring into the sky. “It’s the biggest case we’ve ever been offered, Y/N.”

 

Jacob wasn’t allowed to talk much about the work he did, but she knew that he loved it, and that it was detrimentally important for the people he helped. 

 

“You’ll do great, babe.” She cranes her neck to give him a soft kiss, to which he hums and untangles himself from her embrace.

 

“How’d you sleep?” He asks as he busies himself with a makeshift breakfast.

 

She doesn’t tell him she had another nightmare. The same one from before. The one that had sent her spiraling so many years ago. 

 

“Fine.” Y/N braces herself on the banister with her elbows to disguise the way her knuckles tighten around the ceramic. 

 

Reaching into an endless sky as the wind ripped around her, crashing over and over into snow capped cliffs—-

 

The smell of Jake’s burnt toast is enough to make her stomach turn, but she powers through it, only letting herself dry heave into the sink when he disappears out the door with a call of his love. 

 

————

 

The smell of chemicals is intense, hanging thick in the air as Bucky tosses a soap filled sponge into a nearby bucket. It sloshes near his boots and he supposes that wet socks were nothin’ compared to...

 

Well

 

Maybe they were. When the water is warm and laced with thickening soap that seeps through the eyelets and everything smells so goddamn sterile—

 

Fuck, his eyes begin to water, everything stings and his head feels like it’s on fire and he has to stumble backwards, into the office, Dennis’ office, where the air is crisp and cool and not at all like what the wash floor is like. 

 

Dennis sits at his desk and sends a concerned glance Bucky’s way as his pen scratches dutifully over paperwork. 

 

“You alright, son?” He asks from behind a thick mustache and furry brows that nearly obscure his eyes and Bucky focuses on the fleeting thought process behind how the man can even see before he braces himself with his hands on his knees and his head hung low. He eventually nods between gasping breaths. 

 

“Just need a sec,” Bucky wipes his nose on the back of his hand, and tries desperately to right the spinning room. 

 

Dennis hums in acknowledgement, and watches the staccato rhythm that the soldier’s breathing takes on. 

 

“Military takes it outta ya,” is all he says, pen continuing to scrape softly. 

 

Bucky straightens back out and watches Dennis write for a moment before he sucks in a wet breath. “I’m sorry, sir—“

 

“Don’t worry about it.” When Dennis smiles, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “The weight upon a soldier’s back never lightens, least of all when the war is over. He carries it like he carries his Bergen, woven with the threads of his wrongdoings and guilt and built sturdy with his ghosts.”

 

All the dark haired man can think to do is nod in understanding, and head back to the wash floor. 

 

————

 

Y/N watches from across the table as Jake picks at his food, phone pressed to his ear as he talks in medical jargon she can only half decipher. 

 

He finally hangs up, green eyes scrutinizing her reaction as he speaks. “That was Oxwell,” The dark haired man shoves a piece of fish into his mouth and continues around it. “I got the case.” 

 

She matches the grin he gives her and claps excitedly. “Congrats, baby! That’s amazing!”

 

“They’re flying me out to meet with Oxwell in a few days. From there, I’ll be gone every weekend to keep an eye on the—“

 

Y/N feels her gut drop. He’d gone away for stretches before but, “Every weekend? So, so what, I— I’m just never going to be able to see you?”

 

“It’s not permanent, sweetheart Just until my patient is adjusted.” The older man reaches across the table to take Y/N’s hands. 

 

“What if he never gets adjusted, Jacob? What then? We’re getting married in two months, I can’t—“ Her eyes well with tears at the thought of being unable to seek comfort in her fiancé when the world got to loud for her delicate head. What would she do about the hallucinations and the nightmares and—

 

Y/N must have been thinking out loud otherwise he wouldn’t be looking at her like that. 

 

“Honey, look at me.” Jake is watching her eyes swim with fear, hands trembling in his. He tightens his grip and laces their fingers together. “Y/N, baby. Look at me. You have a vision, or a nightmare, anything. Even if you’re just nervous and wanna hear my voice while I’m gone, you call me, hm?”

 

“Okay,” She bats at her tears and tries to smile at him. It’s a little heavy, but it works.

 

 

————

 

Sunday morning.

 

James is staring at the ceiling of his apartment when something pulls at the edge of his consciousness. Like someone had called out to him from somewhere far away. 

 

He sits up and looks around. Strains his ears and sits still. Nothing but the hum of the air conditioner and the city life below. 

 

He gets up and is reaching for his shoes to take a run when his vision blurs. Everything goes out of focus as a light blinds him. He cinches his eyes shut, and hopes that when he opens them again that the light is gone. Except when he opens them he doesn’t see his apartment.

 

“Stop it stop it stop it—“ A female voice pleads. Panic and distress tighten his chest and he wonders if this is a memory. 

 

At least, until he sees two delicate hands with blue painted nails shoot out before him. Definitely not his. 

 

“What the hell?” Bucky whispers to himself.

 

“This can’t be happening, not again. No, no, no.”

 

“Who said that?”

 

If he focuses, he can pull the brown panel walls into the forefront of his vision, but the stark white foyer is always glimmering in and out, like a dream. This was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Through all his years of mental prodding, it had never felt so. Vivid. Could feel the cool marble beneath her—his?— feet, and the scratch of nervous nails against his arms. 

 

“Stop it” is her mantra, and he can feel her tugging on the ends of her hair. It makes his scalp tingle in way that makes goosebumps erupt down his arms. 

 

“Oh, shit.” He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and wishes whatever this was would end. Anxiety floods him. What if none of this was real? What if—

 

Bile rises in Bucky’s throat. 

 

HYDRA.

 

“Go away!” She shouts. 

 

It rings crystal clear, as if she had been beside him. 

 

“Shut up!” He growls. Clenches his jaw to try and get a handle on whatever emotion was making his temples throb.

 

And a hush falls. He can make out the faint hum of his AC unit in the distance. Can feel hot tears tracking down his face. This was not fucking normal. And there was a lot of shit in Bucky’s life that had been not normal like falling from a train and living, or having a giant metal arm stuck to his body, but this took the cake. He wonders if this is something you tell a therapist. Probably. But if he was going crazy....er, he may as well go all the way, right? 

 

“Can you hear me?”

 

A sob rips it way from her chest and the soldier realizes he hadn’t been the one crying. 

 

“What the fuck is this?”

 

“I’m sorry— I’m sorry—“ She’s sobbing over and over, tugging at her scalp, nails working furiously over her wrists.

 

“Sorry? Did I...? Oh, god. I did this. This was me. Jesus, fuck.”

 

“Who are you?” The woman is hysterical and it makes his insides constrict. He can feel the distress like an electrical current thrumming beneath his skin.

 

Bucky observes. She shoves through a large black door, and is plunged into sunlight. It’s warm. Dry. Like the desert. Nothing like the wet New York heat that creeps across your skin like a film. “James.”

 

“Get out of my head, please!”

 

“This ain’t your head, darlin’, this is New York.” Muscle memory guides him to the window, and he pulls the cord to lift the shade. The city shouts before him, clamorous even as the sun only begins to crack across the sky like a broken egg over rooftops.

 

He hears a sound behind him, and when he turns to look, she’s gone. 


End file.
